{I like to walk around amidst the beautiful things that adorn the world.} (g.Santayana)

Paulo's mosaic of Delaware River stones, Atlantic Ocean seashells, colorful tesserae, and found objects including the girl on the rock / June 2014

The mosaic art is one of the earliest known, and belongs quite to the infancy of civilization. The Chinese possess it with their other stationary arts from time immemorial; it was found among the primitive inhabitants of America, and in a more or less rude form among the earliest remains of nearly all nations. Some authors think it was invented by the Persians, ... After them the Assyrians are supposed to have taught this art to the Egyptians and the Greeks, from whom it passed to the Romans, who unquestionably used it with the greatest profusion, and carried it with them into all their provinces, including Gaul and Britain, as is abundantly proved by the innumerable examples which are found on the site of every Roman station or villa.